What Kills Me (13 page)

I crossed the tiled brown floor and
opened the balcony doors. There was nowhere to step out, just a
railing. Clouds obscured the moon. I imagined the general standing
in a nearby alley under this murky sky, his soldiers fanning out
across the town. I imagined him sneaking up behind me, biting my
shoulder, crunching my collarbone. I shuddered and closed the
doors.

“I have to rest now,” Lucas said,
sliding his sword back into its sheath.

“You can have the bed. I don’t mind
sleeping on the floor.”

“Too much sun in the room,” he said.
“I’m going to lie in the bathtub.”

He gathered his bag and headed to the
washroom.

“Lucas,” I said.

He turned and I launched a pillow at
him from the bed. “Here.”

He looked at the saggy feather pillow
as if it was a contraption requiring instructions.

“Hey. What if I have to use the
washroom?” I asked. As soon as I said it, I realized that I hadn’t
felt the need in awhile.

“You’re dead. You have no bodily
functions. The only thing you do that’s human is bleed.”

I could not sleep. The sunlight
streamed through the light curtains.

When I closed my eyes, I
saw Noel. His crumpled, devastated body. His open, unseeing eyes on
his detached head.
You rescued me and in
return, you died.
I writhed with guilt and
buried my face in my pillow.

From the room I was experiencing the
life of the town. There were so many voices. Children laughing.
Seagulls in the harbor. A man was dragging chairs across the road,
yelling in Italian. A couple argued in shrill tones in a nearby
apartment. And then there were the smells—baked goods, fish on a
grill. Fresh linen. Cigarette smoke.

As the sun started to set, I perched
on the edge of the bed and waited until Lucas opened the
door.

“You didn’t rest. I heard you tossing
all day,” he said. “It was annoying.”

Despite his angry tone, I was
comforted by his voice. It was a respite from hearing my
conscience.

“I couldn’t sleep. It was so
noisy.”

He walked around to the other side of
the bed and put his backpack and swords down. He looked at my
pillow; it was spotted with blood from my tears. I quickly flipped
it over.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about what
happened,” I said.

Ignoring me, he strapped his harness
across his chest.

“I just feel sick about Noel
and…”

His head snapped up. “Don’t,” he
said.

“I’m sorry I…”

“I know you’re sorry. I don’t want to
talk about it. Ever.”

I nodded and faced away
from him.
He doesn’t want to hear it,
Zee.
I felt selfish for trying to use him
to alleviate my guilt. I searched for something else to say, but
all of a sudden I felt drained. I leaned my elbows on my knees. My
body felt weak, deboned.
Does this mean I
have to feed again?

“Do vampires drink vampire blood?” I
asked.

“No,” he said, as if I had asked a
stupid question.

“Oh, okay. I thought it might be like
wine. You know, the older the better. Or like cheese,” I
said.

He didn’t respond so I started to
mutter to myself. “I’m going to miss cheese. Except blue cheese.
That tastes like feet.”

“You’re a vampire now,” he said. “All
human food is going to taste like feet.”

“Everything?”

“Hey, schoolgirl.”

“Yes?”

“Stop talking.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I talk when I’m
nervous or upset. My sister has diabetes so I used to tell her
jokes to distract her from needles when we were kids. But even she
thinks it’s annoying now.”

He snapped his fingers toward the
door, which I took to mean that he wanted me to put on my shoes. I
unlaced Jerome’s runners and wiggled my feet inside. As I was tying
the bows, I heard the man downstairs greet someone. There was a
pause. Then a crack. A rolling chair skidded across the
floor.

“Lucas,” I whispered.

“I know,” he said.

He took my elbow and pulled
me away from the door. I concentrated on the patter of feet, too
light and too quick to be human, ascending the stairs in
bounds.
Two. There are two of them.
Lucas handed me the backpack, which I slung both
of my arms through. Affixing his swords to his body, he moved in
front of me.

We should run.

The door suddenly burst in, splinters
from the doorframe sailing onto the bed. Two statuesque figures
stepped inside. One appeared as if he was on vacation, dressed in
an orange Hawaiian-print shirt and khaki pants. The other vampire
was wearing a black T-shirt over dark jeans and his brown hair was
tied in a ponytail. In the dim room their eyes glowed.

The tourist began talking in Italian.
Lucas answered in a monotone.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He says the Monarchy has put a reward
on our heads. Me dead. You alive. He wants us to go with
them.”

“What did you say?”

“Things that should not be repeated to
a lady.”

“Let’s not cause a scene, huh?” said
the vampire with the ponytail. He had an American accent. “There
are humans everywhere. Just come with us. Nice and
easy.”

Lucas reached over his head and
removed his blades.

“All right. You want to make this
difficult,” the American said. He lifted up the back of his T-shirt
and pulled out a short, curved sword. With a flick his weapon
opened into four blades. The tourist wielded a weapon in each hand.
They resembled handsaws, but each had two blades attached to the
handle so it looked like he had forks on the ends of his
fists.

“Please,” I blurted.

The vampires charged at a blinding
speed, fangs bared, weapons raised. The American with the
four-bladed weapon reached Lucas first, raking the air where
Lucas’s head was a fraction of a second ago. Lucas ducked and
kicked him across the room. The American slammed into the wall,
plaster crumbling around him.

Lucas warded off several blows from
the tourist. As the tourist tried to stab his head, Lucas took a
few steps back, cornering me against the wall. The blades flew over
Lucas’s shoulder and sliced off a lock of my hair. I whirled away
and jumped onto the bed, the springs squealing. The tourist tried
to get Lucas with an uppercut, but when Lucas brought a sword down
to stop the blow, his blade got caught between the tourist’s
prongs. With a twist of his wrist, the tourist sent Lucas’s sword
flying. It stuck, quivering, in the balcony door.

The American scrambled to his feet. I
snatched a lamp from the nightstand and hurled it at the American’s
head. He shielded his face, the porcelain exploding on the back of
his fist. I threw the other lamp at him. He caught it and broke it
in his hand. Growling, the American rushed at me.

I screamed. All of a sudden, I heard
the whistle of a blade. The American also heard it but too late. He
turned and Lucas’s sword stuck itself in the center of his
skull.

Unarmed, Lucas ducked and wove, the
tourist’s knives skimming his body. As the tourist thrust his
weapon at Lucas, I gasped. Lucas grabbed the tourist’s arm, bent it
in, and pushed on the vampire’s elbow, causing him to stab himself
in the chest. The tourist screamed. Lucas spun and kicked him in
the face.

The American was staggering around the
room, the sword bisecting his head, the handle level with his eyes.
Lucas yanked his other sword from the balcony door and faced the
American.

“I’m going to need my weapon back,”
Lucas said.

Snarling, the American ripped the
sword from his head, blood pouring down between his eyes, chunks of
his scalp torn away. The sword clattered to the floor by the
bed.

“I’m going to skin you alive,” the
American said.

“Come and try,” Lucas said.

The American gnashed his teeth and
attacked, brandishing his weapon in front of him. One of his
strikes gashed Lucas’s right shoulder. Lucas grimaced and switched
his sword to his left hand. I rolled off the bed and grabbed
Lucas’s other sword. Surprised by its weight, I pointed it at the
two vampires locked in combat. As I danced around them, Lucas
ducked under the American’s blades and shoved him at me.

The force of the American’s body drove
me back against the wall. He cried out. Cool liquid spilled over my
hands. I looked down and the American was impaled on my
sword.

“Oh my God,” I blurted. I had the
ludicrous urge to apologize. I let go of the sword and the American
fell over like an oak tree. On his descent Lucas took off his
head.

Then he pulled his sword from the
torso, gave it a flick to remove the blood, and jammed both of his
blades back in their sheaths. Behind him the tourist had
risen.

“He’s…” I started.

Lucas picked up the American’s weapon
and flung it across the room. It flew like a frisbee and lobbed off
the tourist’s head. A spray of blood coated the wall.

“…
coming,” I
said.

“Are you all right?” Lucas
asked.

I was panting to try to calm myself
and my eyes were so wide they hurt.

“I said, are you okay?”

I nodded. My hands were crooked like
claws and the American’s blood dripped off my
fingertips.

“I’ve never stabbed someone before,” I
said, sounding like a robot.

“You did all right.”

His shirt was ripped at the shoulder.
“You’re cut,” I said.

“Healed already,” he muttered,
crossing the room.

I followed him, tiptoeing around the
body parts and wiping my hands on my shirt.

“Who were they?” I asked.

“Mercenaries. More are
coming.”

He threw open the balcony
doors.

“We’re going to jump to that roof
there,” he said, pointing.

I looked at the rooftop terrace across
the street.

“Seriously? Is that really
necessary?”

“Yes.”

He jumped onto the
two-inch-wide balcony railing and stood balanced. He held his hand
out for me.
There is a theme here: I’m
always climbing up something or jumping out of windows.
I took his hand and he hoisted me up. Holding
him, I found that I could maintain my balance.
Or not.

“Whoa!” I said, teetering
forward.

“Stand up straight,” he
snapped.

I righted myself. “Sorry. I don’t
normally do this.”

“Listen to me. Bend your knees and
jump on three.”

“Wait. Is it three and then
jump?”

“One, two, jump.”

“What if I don’t make it?”

“You’ll break your face on the ground.
So be sure to make it.”

Great.
I inched my feet further apart and bent my knees.

“One, two,” he counted.

“Three!” I yelled.

We both leaped from the
balcony.

Lucas and I crossed the town by
hopping across rooftops. After the first two jumps I stopped
closing my eyes. Each time I launched myself across an empty space
and landed on my feet, the thrill pushed out the fear. Soon we
plotted different paths. Lucas preferred to catch things with his
hands—railings, storm drains—and swing his body like a monkey. I
was much less graceful, crashing into planters, somersaulting and
rolling down steep roofs. But I didn’t care. It was like I could
fly.

Lucas was a few buildings ahead. He
stopped and waited until I saw him and then he pointed
down.

“What?” I mouthed.

Then he stepped off the edge. When I
reached the spot where he had disappeared, I looked four stories
down and Lucas was pulling a man out of a small blue car. The man
was wearing all white so Lucas looked like he was tossing aside a
ball of paper.

“Hey!” I said. I hopped off the edge
without thinking. I no longer feared the fall. With my arms
extended like wings, I waited to reach the road. I hit the
cobblestone hard, my hands slapping the ground. Wincing, I dusted
them off and approached the car.

“What are you doing?” I
asked.

“Get in,” he said.

“You can’t just take this man’s car,”
I said. Lucas was already in the driver’s side, adjusting his seat.
The man clambered up from the sidewalk and began to shout in
Italian.

“Get in the car,” Lucas
growled.

I opened the door and climbed
inside.

“You’re going to hell,” I
said.

“I knew that a long time ago,” he
said, putting the car into gear.